Arrested suspect in shooting at a Miami-Dade bar was just doing his job, attorney says
The attorney for a man charged with attempted murder at a triple shooting outside a North Miami-Dade bar says his client was just doing his job as the club’s security guard.
Whether or not Kijuan Sears is a security guard at The Chicagoan Bar, 10702 NW Seventh Ave., the owners have declined to say.
Sears, 30, can be found at Metrowest Detention Center, where he has been since Sept. 19, about 30 hours after police say he and two other men were shot outside The Chicagoan. Sears was granted no bond on two counts of attempted premeditated murder, and has evidence tampering and public discharge of a firearm charges hanging over his head as well. A felony perjury charge wasn’t prosecuted. He’s pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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Miami-Dade police say surveillance video shows Sears firing into a crowd outside The Chicagoan and someone with a Diamondback rifle firing back in self-defense. Sears was hit in the arm, police say. On the other end of the shots from Sears, police say, one man was hit in a foot and another was hit in the lower back and left leg.
Jarlens Princilis, Sears’ attorney, says police have it wrong. He claimed Sears was working the 9 p.m. to closing shift as a security guard, a job he’s had at the Chicagoan since January. That’s the same month that a gun-firing customer was killed by security guards as four other people were shot at the Chicagoan, a windowless place where customers have to be buzzed in even in the daytime.
Princilis said on Sept. 18, Sears “went to break up a fight. One guy who was an associate of one of the persons fighting fired shots in the air. As Mr. Sears started to walk back towards the bar, he noticed the same guy waving a firearm at him. Considering that this guy was just shooting, he fired at him as a result of being afraid.”
A Miami Herald reporter stopped by the Chicagoan to confirm Sears’ employment status. All employees present claimed ignorance and Chicagoan management didn’t return the message.
State records say The Chicagoan Lounge was at that location in 1973, but was involuntarily dissolved on Dec. 8, 1980.
Miami-Dade County records say the 1944-built building now is owned by 10702 NW 7th Ave., Inc., a company registered with the state on Oct. 29, 2018, by Stanley Bien-Aime, with Bien-Aime as president and Racmedran Pierre as vice president. They remain in those positions today.
Two days after registering with the state of Florida, 10702 NW 7th Ave. Inc. bought the building from Skol Corporation, a Miami Beach company run by Michael Skolnick that had owned the building since 1993.
